Archive for February 10th, 2009

Laugh at it if you must but my Garden State Chess League website is up.

I knew that someone would eventually write a column like Bob Herbert’s “The Chess Master” (The New York Times, February 9), presenting Barack Obama’s rational political strategy as equivalent to brilliant chessplaying. Not surprisingly, Herbert is not the first to make the comparison: “Chessmaster Obama’s Plan for a 60-Seat Super-Majority” is only one of many that I turn up with a quick Google search. It seems that there is a new game in town, and one that contrasts sharply with the primitive, bullying, dangerous, risk-taking, and self-centered gamesmanship of the previous administration, as I have commented on in “Texas Hold’em,” “Chess and Diplomacy” and “US-Russian Diplomacy as Monopoly vs. Chess.” I hope Obama’s middlegame and endgame are as strong as his opening.